The Session >> Discussions >> How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
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How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
We all get a sense of the acitivity by the number of submissions, but I am curious to how big a room it would take to make room for every sessioneer. How much time is spent in this virtual space?
I am hoping that Jeremy in particular can pull out some figures from his site manager hat that can be of general interest, e.g:
- Have the number of members increased steadily over the years?
- What is the number of "active users" including active lurkers?
- How much time is spent by the average user?
- Geographical distribution?
I've been an addict for the last few years, soon likely to join an AVS (Anonymous Virtual Sessioneer) allthough I am proud to say I have managed to keep a healthy balance with interacting with the real world of fiddling and sessioneering (more of all).
I use "The Session" site on a daily basis, have made it my default home page, the usage varies, but I can easily spend hours on this site. If I play along with dots I would do it directly from the screen. My lurker /contributer ratio is probably 20 to 1 or higher.
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Too many hours spent here! Too much verbiage leaked from my keyboard! Too many tunes to learn in too short a time!
Wouldn't give it up for the world. Been here since before there was a here and we were all only names on Jeremy's list of people to e-mail. Oddly, I don't remember how I got on that list, even. Since I work in my home workshop, I have to studiously avoid picking up the fiddle during the day or I'd never get a single thing done.
Made a lot of friends here so I spend time here catching up with them. Plus I use it as my carrot: "okay, if I get X number of bodices done and X number of pieces cut, then I can spend ten minutes online."
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
I could probably count the number of The Session members I've met on two hands. I have no hard evidence that any of the others exist, so I'd say you could probably fit all the members into a phone box - at least into a self-cleaning loo.
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Self-cleaning loo? Are you suggesting we're sh!t, David? :~)
I admit I spend more time here than I spend time practicing. I'm able to log on at work, and nip on in between experiments. I don't feel guilty cos I think I work hard enough. At home, I often have a look on quite later at night, as I can't practice too late with one very small child and another medium-sized one. It's rare that on logging on I don't shout my mouth off about something. I suspect my real persona is a bit quieter than my e-persona, you'll be pleased to hear.
I've met a fair few of the London Chapter and I'm curious to meet and play alongside others in SE England - or from anywhere for that matter!
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
I must be mad. Through idle(?) curiosity, I took it upon myself to try and count up all the members on this web site. Even before I'd got to 'A' I realised this was gonna take ages, and the enormity of the task was daunting. So, I estimated 20 members per page and counted *405 pages*! That works out at 8,100 members! Bloody hell! Even if it is conservatively estimated down to say, 7,000, that's a helluva lot of people.
Whilst carrying out this self-inflicted mind-numbing task (with an "I've started so I'll finish" mentality), I took to guestimating the number of members who'd actually written a bio. This, sadly, is only between 2-3 per page, say, 2.5, which is only 5%. So maybe only between 300-400 out of 7000-8000 people have written bios. Obviously, there are many people who never post, so fair enough, but there must be many people who do post but haven't done a bio.
I'd like to hear if Jeremy has *actual* figures, to see how close my estimates are.
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Danny - 8049 members, "palf' being that latest, as of 10.10pm Sat Oct 19 2003 Sydney time.
(I started with my own profile, noting I was member number 4882, then replaced that number with 5000, 5500, 6000, and so on in increments of 500 till at 8500 I overshot, then I came back to 8000 and worked up from there. Much quicker 8>)
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Ah well, not a bad estimate. It didn't take me too long - half an hour max. But it was a tedious half hour! But I'm glad to hear I'm not the only obsessive geek here! :~)
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
A lot of people only use the tunes section, giving the discussions a pass. A shame, because of course that's what makes The Session really The Session. Though of course that's a pretty overwhelming amount of people, imagine if they all posted, the bandwidth would be terrifying....
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
As there is no way to cancel your membership (not that I wanted to) will the numbers just swell or would you, Jeremy, consider deleting member's names if they haven't visited the site for say a year?
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Good stuff, Jeremy
I''ve been out in the real world of sessioneering - hope you all excuse me for popping the discussion and slipping out the in the real world weekend's fun. What's great about this site is that it adds to the fun of the real world.
First, would be fun to know if anyone has any information on how many musicians that do ITM in the real world. The amount of pipers has been said to be around 3000, but that gives no clue to the rest..
I think the most interesting figure in Jeremy's statistics is the 1216 members with a bio, the email update guys (978), and the number of comment contributors (1432). This shows some sort of active involvement from around 1500 people. At the same time aound 2500 have tried out the tune book funcitonality. What we cannot read from these figures is how many that follow the discussions or use this site on some regular basis. My speculative guess based on the above figures would be a community in the range of 500 to 1500 use the site on a regular basis. Traffic load data would be needed to make this guess educated, Jeremy...
Why I think these figures are important is the networking potential it represents. The more people in the network, and the more interactivity here on this site, the more likely to find yourself in the most unlikely great session in a remote corner of the world.
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
It would be straightforward - if a little tedious - to trawl through the discussions for the last two or three months to see which members post comments, and how often. This will identify a core of members who can be relied upon to post a comment on almost any topic (no names, no pack drill, and no prizes for guessing who they are!).
Trevor
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
I've been meaning to post this story for a month now--just too swamped with work to get around to it till now. And here's the perfect opening. This site *does* provide an amazing network, and I have proof.
First, back at the Montana Irish Festival in Butte last August, I had all kinds of people walking up to me and saying, "You must be Will...I know you from the session dot org." I still don't understand how they recognized me, but at least 7 people did just that in one day, on the street, at a session, etc.
Now the kicker. Last month, I traveled on business to Newark, New Jersey, and then on to the tiny hamlet of Milford, Pennsylvania (population 1,292), on the banks of the beautiful upper Delaware River. I ran a series of meetings over the course of two days, interviewing the locals about water quality issues and the impacts of housing subdivisions and commercial development (thanks to people flocking out of New York City in the wake of 9-11).
At one of the evening meetings, I mentioned that I was from Montana, and that it was interesting to see some of the same growth problems (albeit on a different scale) in two very different parts of the country. After the meeting, a guy came up and asked, "You're from Montana?"
"Yep."
"What town?"
"Helena..."
"And your name," he paused to look over my shoulder at my name card still on the table, "your name is Will Harmon?"
"Yes, but what--"
"You play the fiddle, right?"
About the same time it dawned on me where this was going, he introduced himself as Jim, a tenor banjo player and an avid lurker at thesession.org.
You gotta love a network that--after you fly 6.5 hours across the continent, drive another hour and a half into the backwoods of the eastern Pocono mountains to a town you've never even heard of before, and invite strangers to visit about their watershed--instantly hooks you up with a kindred soul and musician who knows you by first name.
I still chuckle when I think about it.
I'm headed back to Milford this week, and am trying to figure out how ditch to business long enough to sit in on Jim's Friday night session. That would make the trip truly worthwhile, but my schedule doesn't look promising.... We'll see.
How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
We all get a sense of the acitivity by the number of submissions, but I am curious to how big a room it would take to make room for every sessioneer. How much time is spent in this virtual space?
I am hoping that Jeremy in particular can pull out some figures from his site manager hat that can be of general interest, e.g:
- Have the number of members increased steadily over the years?
- What is the number of "active users" including active lurkers?
- How much time is spent by the average user?
- Geographical distribution?
I've been an addict for the last few years, soon likely to join an AVS (Anonymous Virtual Sessioneer) allthough I am proud to say I have managed to keep a healthy balance with interacting with the real world of fiddling and sessioneering (more of all).
I use "The Session" site on a daily basis, have made it my default home page, the usage varies, but I can easily spend hours on this site. If I play along with dots I would do it directly from the screen. My lurker /contributer ratio is probably 20 to 1 or higher.
How about the rest of the gang?
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by FiddlerInTheLoft
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Too many hours spent here! Too much verbiage leaked from my keyboard! Too many tunes to learn in too short a time!
Wouldn't give it up for the world. Been here since before there was a here and we were all only names on Jeremy's list of people to e-mail. Oddly, I don't remember how I got on that list, even. Since I work in my home workshop, I have to studiously avoid picking up the fiddle during the day or I'd never get a single thing done.
Made a lot of friends here so I spend time here catching up with them. Plus I use it as my carrot: "okay, if I get X number of bodices done and X number of pieces cut, then I can spend ten minutes online."
*sigh* I'm pathetic.
Zina
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
I could probably count the number of The Session members I've met on two hands. I have no hard evidence that any of the others exist, so I'd say you could probably fit all the members into a phone box - at least into a self-cleaning loo.
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Self-cleaning loo? Are you suggesting we're sh!t, David? :~)
I admit I spend more time here than I spend time practicing. I'm able to log on at work, and nip on in between experiments. I don't feel guilty cos I think I work hard enough. At home, I often have a look on quite later at night, as I can't practice too late with one very small child and another medium-sized one. It's rare that on logging on I don't shout my mouth off about something. I suspect my real persona is a bit quieter than my e-persona, you'll be pleased to hear.
I've met a fair few of the London Chapter and I'm curious to meet and play alongside others in SE England - or from anywhere for that matter!
Danny.
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by danny flute whistle box
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
I must be mad. Through idle(?) curiosity, I took it upon myself to try and count up all the members on this web site. Even before I'd got to 'A' I realised this was gonna take ages, and the enormity of the task was daunting. So, I estimated 20 members per page and counted *405 pages*! That works out at 8,100 members! Bloody hell! Even if it is conservatively estimated down to say, 7,000, that's a helluva lot of people.
Whilst carrying out this self-inflicted mind-numbing task (with an "I've started so I'll finish" mentality), I took to guestimating the number of members who'd actually written a bio. This, sadly, is only between 2-3 per page, say, 2.5, which is only 5%. So maybe only between 300-400 out of 7000-8000 people have written bios. Obviously, there are many people who never post, so fair enough, but there must be many people who do post but haven't done a bio.
I'd like to hear if Jeremy has *actual* figures, to see how close my estimates are.
Danny.
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by danny flute whistle box
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Danny - 8049 members, "palf' being that latest, as of 10.10pm Sat Oct 19 2003 Sydney time.
(I started with my own profile, noting I was member number 4882, then replaced that number with 5000, 5500, 6000, and so on in increments of 500 till at 8500 I overshot, then I came back to 8000 and worked up from there. Much quicker 8>)
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by Tish
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Ah well, not a bad estimate. It didn't take me too long - half an hour max. But it was a tedious half hour! But I'm glad to hear I'm not the only obsessive geek here! :~)
# Posted on October 17th 2003 by danny flute whistle box
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
A lot of people only use the tunes section, giving the discussions a pass. A shame, because of course that's what makes The Session really The Session. Though of course that's a pretty overwhelming amount of people, imagine if they all posted, the bandwidth would be terrifying....
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Fair enough, but not 95%, surely?
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by danny flute whistle box
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Okay, here are a couple of quick statistics:
Total number of members at this exact moment: 8000
Number of members who receive email updates once a week: 978
Number of members who have written something in their bio: 1216
Number of members with tunes in their tunebooks: 2488
Most number of tunes in a single tunebook: 785
Number of members who have ever posted a comment: 1432
That puts to the contributor to lurker ratio at about 17.9% to 82.1%
Total number of comments posted to date: 40768
Most comments posted by a single member: 3746
Most tunes posted by a single member: 247
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by Jeremy
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
so who's the member with the 3746 comments? we notice that zina only has 3745
sarah
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by sarahc
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Tied! *smirk* See, I told you I was pathetic...
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Jeremy - collossal!
Zina - you've made me feel better - that's about 2 and a half times mine - I'm only 1400-odd!....but then again I've only been here about a year...
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by danny flute whistle box
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Yes, give it time, Danny, I've had a bit of time to post that many. *grin*
# Posted on October 18th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
As there is no way to cancel your membership (not that I wanted to) will the numbers just swell or would you, Jeremy, consider deleting member's names if they haven't visited the site for say a year?
# Posted on October 19th 2003 by kuec
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
Good stuff, Jeremy
I''ve been out in the real world of sessioneering - hope you all excuse me for popping the discussion and slipping out the in the real world weekend's fun. What's great about this site is that it adds to the fun of the real world.
First, would be fun to know if anyone has any information on how many musicians that do ITM in the real world. The amount of pipers has been said to be around 3000, but that gives no clue to the rest..
I think the most interesting figure in Jeremy's statistics is the 1216 members with a bio, the email update guys (978), and the number of comment contributors (1432). This shows some sort of active involvement from around 1500 people. At the same time aound 2500 have tried out the tune book funcitonality. What we cannot read from these figures is how many that follow the discussions or use this site on some regular basis. My speculative guess based on the above figures would be a community in the range of 500 to 1500 use the site on a regular basis. Traffic load data would be needed to make this guess educated, Jeremy...
Why I think these figures are important is the networking potential it represents. The more people in the network, and the more interactivity here on this site, the more likely to find yourself in the most unlikely great session in a remote corner of the world.
# Posted on October 19th 2003 by FiddlerInTheLoft
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
'active involvement from around 1500 people' - that's a bloody big self-cleaning loo you must be used to, David....
# Posted on October 19th 2003 by Ottery
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
It would be straightforward - if a little tedious - to trawl through the discussions for the last two or three months to see which members post comments, and how often. This will identify a core of members who can be relied upon to post a comment on almost any topic (no names, no pack drill, and no prizes for guessing who they are!).
Trevor
# Posted on October 19th 2003 by lazyhound
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
I've been meaning to post this story for a month now--just too swamped with work to get around to it till now. And here's the perfect opening. This site *does* provide an amazing network, and I have proof.
First, back at the Montana Irish Festival in Butte last August, I had all kinds of people walking up to me and saying, "You must be Will...I know you from the session dot org." I still don't understand how they recognized me, but at least 7 people did just that in one day, on the street, at a session, etc.
Now the kicker. Last month, I traveled on business to Newark, New Jersey, and then on to the tiny hamlet of Milford, Pennsylvania (population 1,292), on the banks of the beautiful upper Delaware River. I ran a series of meetings over the course of two days, interviewing the locals about water quality issues and the impacts of housing subdivisions and commercial development (thanks to people flocking out of New York City in the wake of 9-11).
At one of the evening meetings, I mentioned that I was from Montana, and that it was interesting to see some of the same growth problems (albeit on a different scale) in two very different parts of the country. After the meeting, a guy came up and asked, "You're from Montana?"
"Yep."
"What town?"
"Helena..."
"And your name," he paused to look over my shoulder at my name card still on the table, "your name is Will Harmon?"
"Yes, but what--"
"You play the fiddle, right?"
About the same time it dawned on me where this was going, he introduced himself as Jim, a tenor banjo player and an avid lurker at thesession.org.
You gotta love a network that--after you fly 6.5 hours across the continent, drive another hour and a half into the backwoods of the eastern Pocono mountains to a town you've never even heard of before, and invite strangers to visit about their watershed--instantly hooks you up with a kindred soul and musician who knows you by first name.
I still chuckle when I think about it.
I'm headed back to Milford this week, and am trying to figure out how ditch to business long enough to sit in on Jim's Friday night session. That would make the trip truly worthwhile, but my schedule doesn't look promising.... We'll see.
# Posted on October 19th 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: How about some statistics about "The Session" and its members?
It's stories like that that warm the cockles of my heart.
It's a small trad music world after all.
# Posted on October 19th 2003 by Jeremy